Cori Desmond's killer gets 25 to life

SAN BERNARDINO - A Redondo Beach man was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison Monday for killing a Manhattan Beach bartender in 2009 and dumping her body in the mountains.

Sporting green jail garb and arm and leg restraints, Tony Lopez Perez sat next to his lawyer, Andrew Haynal, in San Bernardino Superior Court for the sentencing proceedings before Judge David Mazurek.

A jury of six men and six women found Perez guilty on July 27 of first-degree murder in the killing of 28-year-old Cori Daye Desmond of Torrance. Perez smothered and strangled Desmond during an attempted rape on a Redondo Beach street in the early morning hours of Feb. 15, 2009.

Relatives and friends of Desmond traveled from the South Bay on Monday to tell the court how Desmond touched their lives. They spoke of her wonderful laugh and bright smile.

"Cori deserved so much more out of life," her mother, Debbie Desmond, wrote in a statement read aloud by Leslie Schwab. She said Perez deprived her of the opportunity to see her daughter marry, have her own family and make her a grandmother.

"She will be missed every day of my life," wrote Debbie Desmond.

After statements from Desmond's parents, her best friend and Perez's live-in girlfriend - who testified at trial how Perez had victimized her - the family played an emotional 21-minute video presentation of Desmond's life.

In his remarks to the court, Perez said he had strived to walk a straight path in life, but forgot the key lessons he had been taught.

"I should have thought before I acted. I should have stepped back and cleared my head," Perez said.

He apologized for bringing such pain and sorrow to Desmond's family and friends.

Still, Perez's lawyer plans to appeal his client's conviction.

Authorities were nonplused by the defendant's show of remorse.

San Bernardino sheriff's Sgt. Trevis Newport, who headed up the murder investigation, described the case as "the worst of the worst."

Desmond was aspiring to be a teacher, the detective said. A week after she was killed, her father received her passing scores on the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST).

Investigators say Desmond left work in Manhattan Beach the night of Feb. 14, 2009, and went to the BAC Street bar in Redondo Beach to visit with friends until early morning hours. She then went to Bogey's, also in Redondo Beach, but it was closed.

During the trial, Perez claimed he had parked his Dodge Durango near his home on Carnegie Lane in Redondo Beach, passed out after a night of drinking, and then awoke to find Desmond lying on the sidewalk near his vehicle.

Perez told San Bernardino County detectives that he pushed Desmond to see if she was alive. She screamed for him to get away, and the defendant said he panicked and put his hands on her mouth and throat to quiet her.

Prosecutors alleged at trial that Perez intended to rape Desmond. She died of homicidal asphyxiation, with signs of both strangulation and smothering, a forensic pathologist testified.

Perez lifted Desmond's body into the rear passenger area of his Durango and went home to sleep. Hours later, he went to work with the woman's body still in his vehicle.

Later on Feb. 15, 2009, Perez covered Desmond's body with trash bags and drove about 100 miles to the San Bernardino Mountains, where he threw her over a turnout on Highway 330. The body was found the next day, and detectives caught up to Perez several months later after his girlfriend called authorities.

Mark Desmond told the court that his daughter was charismatic, outgoing and had a beautiful future ahead of her.

"She had a wonderful sense of humor. Her laugh was unforgettable, just like her," Mark Desmond said.

The heartbroken father said he realized, the day he heard the guilty verdicts, that his sadness and anguish would stay with him for a lifetime.

In his statement to the court, Mark Desmond called Perez a liar, rapist, murderer and a coward. "He needs to be severed from society to keep other women safe from his sexual deviances," he said.

Brittany Karaffa said Cori Desmond was her best friend and confidant, someone who was always there with a shoulder to cry on when needed.

"She had a heart of gold," Karaffa said.

Cori Desmond would donate her hair to Locks of Love, a nonprofit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children, she said.

Karaffa said that, for her, Valentine's Day will always be a reminder not about love, but about how short life is.